Tips on how to deal with eye contact during job interviews?

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superUnemployed
Emu Egg
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10 Apr 2016, 11:23 am

ok, so I have been rejected from all but one job interview due to lack of eye contact.

How can I improve this?

I'm trying to learn to look on the forehead like some Japanese people do, or the bridge of nose, but it's also proven to be difficult.



ok
Deinonychus
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10 Apr 2016, 12:24 pm

I have no advice for you. It's important that you look in one eye, then into another. Do whatever it takes to keep eye contact with the boss and not the other people sitting there. But it's really really hard. In fact, give up and focus on something else: The words you say, and answering their questions.



killerBunny
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10 Apr 2016, 8:05 pm

Practice.

Look at yourself in the mirror first.
30 minutes making facial expressions

Then find someone you can practice with like a family member and tell them to force you to make eye contact by making it a requirement for interaction.

The eyes have 2 neural pathways, one to the "brain" and the other to your amygdala which is also in charge of your flight or fight response.

It also impairs your ability for executive functioning so when you are thinking , this is generally when you will look away. Unfortunately you have to think. Take a sedative if it is really important. Only Look at the person you are engaging. Don't do as the poster above suggested and do some cross eyed gymnastics. I would just slow everything down. I have a feeling like many people on the spectrum, your brain is running a few GHz faster than everyone else.

You just need to practice it as much as possible.
That goes for smiling , talking and being able to keep track of how much you are saying. Looking at the forehead doesn't work. Forcing it also doesn't work.

We are very adept, except for many of us with the ASD, at interpreting micro expressions without being aware. Until you can do it naturally thru practice ....

Also remember that everyone else is nervous. You are probably overqualified and the person interviewing you is most likely a lemming with great rhetoric.



Scorpius14
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12 Apr 2016, 8:21 pm

I seem to have mastered body language and eye contact during interviews, but the only problem now lies in researching the company, remembering the information and asking suitable questions which all comes down to memory which I do suffer from slight short term memory loss, but have a good overall long term memory which for example my mind would go blank during an interview despite days of practice beforehand, and then a few days/weeks afterwards I feel like I would ace that interview, I do also have trouble making myself look optimistic and enthusiastic. It's probably a common stereotype for us to know all these facts and figures but for me it doesn't work out and I feel I will never get a job because I always fall at the first hurdle.

I also asked on my cover letter that I be given the chance to prove how I would work in a work trial that usually lasts for a week as opposed to an interview.

Think of the interview as an exam and the work trial to be a practical, in the past i've never been good at exams and my qualifications prove it, but at college doing mostly practical work I got top grades, so i've always been practical over theoretical.



Danae
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06 May 2016, 7:44 am

Train yourself in the mirror. My problem was the opposite, I stared too much. Take a small mirror if needed and practice even before going, it'll make you feel capable of doing it.

Breathe. That sounds stupid, but giving an impression of strenght and stability helps a lot, it can even end up make you really feel that way.

And something that helped me a lot, use your resources, there are people who can make you test yourself, put yourself in situation before doing real interviews. There are people who do that in job centers (that's where she told me I stared way too much), there might associations, and here I know there's a tool I haven't tried yet that allows you to be in real-fake situation, meaning a person that really works in the field you want to try. I know here it's free if you pass by an association.

I might think of other things.


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"Ever since I was a child, I’ve never allowed myself to get too close to people. I’ve avoided emotional attachment. Perhaps I’ve been so afraid of death and dying that any connection just seemed like a bad thing, something that wouldn’t last." Dana Scully - Christmas Carol.